Page 24 of That Defining Moment

Lysander’s smile, when it came, was tentative around the edges. “I feel good about that,” he said simply.

“So do I.”

Hamish closed the door. Lysander was leaning against the opposite wall of the narrow hallway, one bare foot crossed over the other, wearing Hamish’s grey t-shirt and nothing else. The morning sun was coming through the kitchen window at the end of the corridor, backlighting him in a warm stripe that caught the edge of his jaw and the hollow of his collarbone.

Hamish reached across the hallway and hooked two fingers into the neck of the t-shirt, drawing Lysander towards him. Lysander came easily, his weight shifting off the wall, his hip bumping Hamish’s as the gap between them closed. His mouth found Hamish’s in the half-light, and their kiss was unhurried, tasting of coffee and the faintest hint of marmalade.

“Come to bed,” Hamish murmured against his mouth.

Lysander’s fingers were already working his belt.

The bedroom was flooded with midmorning light. The single unlined curtain did nothing to keep it out, as usual, and the sun fell across the unmade bed in a broad, golden wash that made the white sheets glow. Hamish pulled the t-shirt over Lysander’s head and tossed it onto the chair in the corner, then pressed him down onto the mattress.

There was no rush today. The cottage was empty and quiet, and for the first time in weeks there was nobody in the next room to account for. Lysander lay on his back with one arm above his head, watching Hamish shed his jeans and his jumper. Lysander’s hand wrapped loosely around his own cock, stroking himself into hardness.

Hamish settled between his thighs and kissed him again, one hand cradling the side of Lysander’s face. Lysander’s skin was smooth and taut over the lean muscle of his stomach, and the scent of him thickened as Hamish’s mouth moved to his neck. Honey and sun-warmed skin, sweet and heavy, the same scent that had been driving Hamish mad since Thailand.

Lysander’s legs fell open wider, his hips tilting, and the wet heat of his slick smeared against Hamish’s cock where it lay hard between them.

“Like this,” Lysander said quietly. “I want to see you.”

Hamish reached down between them, lined himself up, and pressed in slowly. Lysander’s body took him in one continuous slide, slick and tight and burning hot. His fingers came up and wrapped around the back of Hamish’s neck, positioning him until their foreheads touched.

For a moment Hamish stayed completely still inside him, just looking at the faint dusting of freckles across Lysander’s nose that Hamish had spent entire mornings kissing and tracing with his fingertips. The sunlight caught the flecks of amber in Lysander’s blue eyes, and the curve of his lower lip. “I’m fucking obsessed with you…” It was both a statement and a confession.

Lysander grinned up at him, then his hips rolled up against him in a deliberate grind that Hamish met with his own movements.

He fucked into Lysander in deep strokes, pressing their bodies flush from chest to hip. Lysander’s ankles crossed at the small of Hamish’s back, his heels digging in to pull Hamish deeper on every stroke, and he let out quiet gasps that Hamish caught against his own mouth. There was none of the theatrical moaning from their first night together. This was a conversation conducted through the movement of their bodies alone.

Lysander’s hand drifted from Hamish’s neck to his face, his thumb following the shape of Hamish’s jaw beneath his beard. “I’m fucking obsessed with your beard.” He rubbed his face against it, scratching at it in a way that made Hamish groan in satisfaction and lean into his fingers.

“Shall we stop fucking so I can focus on you giving me scratches?”

Lysander laughed, and his fingers curled into Hamish’s hair as he pulled him down into a kiss that was deeper and messier than the ones before, his tongue sliding against Hamish’s while his hips matched the pace Hamish was setting.

Hamish’s hands slid down to his arse and kneaded, fingers digging into the flesh. The sheets were damp beneath them. Lysander’s slick had soaked through to the mattress, and the wet sounds of their bodies together filled the room alongside the creak of the bedframe and the distant rattle of a tram on Lygon Street. Hamish could feel every part of Lysander pressed against him, the ridge of his hip bones, the hard line of his cock trapped between their stomachs, the flutter and grip of his body with each thrust.

Lysander came first, his back arching off the mattress as his whole body went taut. He didn’t cry out. His mouth opened against Hamish’s neck in a series of ragged, shaking exhales, his fingers digging into Hamish’s shoulders while his cock pulsed hot and wet between them.

Hamish buried his face in Lysander’s hair and followed him over, his hips stuttering forward as his knot swelled and locked them together. The pressure of it made Lysander gasp, his body clenching around Hamish in a way that dragged the orgasm out.

They lay tangled together in the sunlit mess of the bed, Hamish’s weight settled onto Lysander, his knot still buried inside him. Lysander’s fingers traced lazy patterns on Hamish’s back, his touch light and aimless against his damp skin.

Lysander pressed his mouth to the hinge of Hamish’s jaw. “He’ll be fine,” he said again, softer this time, as though he’d been turning it over in his head the whole time.

Hamish smiled against his collarbone. “Yeah. He will.”

✦ ✧ ✦

They showered together, which took twice as long as it needed to because Hamish kept pulling Lysander back under the spray to kiss him, so that by the time they were dressed and caffeinated, it was nearly noon.

Hamish surveyed the cottage with a critical eye. He’d been too preoccupied with sex and Cassian to notice his domestic standards slipping. The kitchen bin was overflowing. The bathroom needed a new shower curtain after Lysander had ripped the old one off its rings in an incident that Hamish had been assured was “not my fault, the plastic was already weak.” Three of the ceiling lights had blown, and they were down to their last roll of toilet paper.

“Right,” Hamish said. “We need to go to IKEA.”

Lysander looked distinctly unimpressed by this suggestion. “An IKEA trip. This early on in our relationship?”

“We need a shower curtain, storage boxes for Cass’s room, and at least one bookshelf that isn’t a stack of milk crates.” He took his keys off the hook. “I’ll buy you lunch.”